


It Fades, If You Let It

by rhoen



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-08
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 08:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10850223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhoen/pseuds/rhoen
Summary: Kakashi never acted on his feelings for Iruka, and now it's too late.





	It Fades, If You Let It

**Author's Note:**

> Tagged as unrequited love because _who knows_? Kakashi sure as shit doesn't, as he never actually asked Iruka...
> 
> Anyway, this is something I found while rooting around on my old hard drive, desperately trying to find an IzuKo fic I want to rewrite. Two lines from 'Crown of Love' by Arcade Fire were in the doc, and 'Crown of Love' was actually the original title (more like 'thorny choker of love', but anyway...) I know it's not much, but I hope someone out there enjoys it.

There it was again – that barely imperceptible shift within him that steadily grew and grew, until it threatened to consume his entire being. The frantic, cloying emptiness spread through him, consuming his heart, his soul, his mind. Although no stranger to grief, the pain that cut through him was of a new, exquisitely unbearable kind. It was harsh and raw, unforgiving and relentless. It drained him, making it seem as if he had been hollowed out and given one last pitiful, trembling breath to sustain his broken soul. There was always a reason for living, he tried to remind himself, but no matter how many times he repeated the mantra the overwhelming desire to just give in, to end the struggle and allow the pain to consume him, fought to take control. He didn’t know how to deal with this. It would be so much easier to curl up alone somewhere and give himself over to the feelings that were too big for him to even be capable of feeling.

Struggling against the rising pain, Kakashi closed his eyes and tried to focus his breathing, keeping it as calm as possible. The shaking of his body and the clenching of his fists would be almost imperceptible to anyone watching him, but he was acutely aware of how his body was reacting. He didn’t think it was at all possible to contain what he was feeling, and that thought made him feel all the more miserable and alone.

What could have been several minutes passed before he regained some of the composure he had lost. Now more in control of the overwhelming sense of loss embedded in his chest, the white-haired nin looked down at the meal he had been preparing: a poor excuse for an attempt at basic nutritional needs. His stomach turned. He probably hadn’t eaten more than half a bowl of rice in the past two days, but somehow he just couldn’t bring himself to care. The survival-trained part of his mind was berating him for taking such poor care of his body when nutrition was so readily available, and he knew he should listen, but right now it just didn’t seem that important. His fingers played idly with the edge of the bowl, his eye losing focus and sliding back up to the view that had broken his meagre control. There, down on the sun-bathed street, a group of kids alternately ran around then stood stock still, frozen like statues, in what Kakashi could only assume was some sort of game with rules he could only guess out. The noise of their laughter and over-exaggerated conversation drifted up through his barely-open window, punctuated by silence and then another sudden outburst of noise as they started running around again.

Stupid really, but how could kids fail to remind him of Iruka? The last time Kakashi saw him, Iruka had been surrounded by a swarm of vivacious pre-genin.

Umino Iruka.

The name fell from Kakashi’s lips in a broken, mournful whisper, strangled by the emotions constricting his throat. How long had it been since he had first noticed the sensei? What was probably only a few years now felt like a lifetime. Chapters in Kakashi’s life were defined by changes in the younger man. Where seasons once used to come and go, Iruka became the marker for the passage time. Little things – such as when he cut his hair, the missions he handed to Kakashi, or the brief conversations they had – came to hold more significance for Kakashi than which flowers were in bloom. He remembered the more important thing about the world around him, such as the midsummer festival two years ago when Iruka had worn a silvery-grey yukata and crushed mochi laughing at Kakashi’s lame joke. Iruka had seemed so happy and carefree then, laughing along with his friends. And Kakashi remembered the darker times: Mizuki’s betrayal, the passing of the Third Hokage…

Kakashi sighed heavily, staring up at the ceiling. The noise of the childrens’ game faded. Night was rapidly falling, and the shadows cast across his room slowly bled into twilight until his eyes struggled to make out the features of his room. Despite knowing what they should be, the lines and forms moved and blurred into shapes his eye didn’t care to understand.

He was tired. He was more tired than he could recall being for a long, long time, and yet, despite that, he knew he couldn’t simply close his eyes and sleep. It was a deeper exhaustion than that – one which consumed his entire being. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he surrendered to it, and, to be quite honest, he was afraid to find out. The feelings were much too big for him to contain, and he felt as if his body were already breaking under the constant strain. To close his eyes and give in would be to give himself over to the darkness and pain that yearned to consume him.

This was a natural part of loss, he thought dimly: to give yourself over to what you were feeling, to become completely immersed in the overwhelming, terrifying maelstrom of emotions until you at last began to learn how to live with them. It was something he hadn’t known or understood until it was perhaps too late. There were so many things about life that ninja training couldn’t prepare you for – too many things he’d had to learn the hard way.

Briefly, Kakashi wondered if it would have be easier if had Iruka died. He snorted humourlessly at the ridiculous notion. So what was it then? Why couldn’t he give himself over to the misery that threatened to consume him? Why was he clinging on, refusing to go through this agonising, bitter and devastatingly lonely process that now he knew too well and had had to go through far too often? He knew that the pain would never leave, but over time it would lessen, and this was a step he had to take before things could start to get better.

Staring out at the darkened street, the children now long gone, he understood why he didn’t want to do it. To give himself over to the dispair he felt and take a step towards learning to living with this pain, and to one day being able to bear it as he did all the other pains and ills in his life, meant letting go: letting go of Iruka; letting go of the little ways in which his life was entwined with the other man’s; letting go of what the memories he held meant to him.

It meant letting go of hope, and in a life which didn’t hold much happiness or hope for those who lived it, relinquishing it was the one thing Kakashi could never bring himself to do.

So he didn’t.


End file.
